This old view of a sleepy Main Street in Pigeon Cove shows the now-abandoned Cape Ann Tool Company to the right and the trolley tracks that once circled Cape Ann to the left. A sign on the third utility pole (by the man in the road) says “Railroad Crossing.” That could refer to the trolley track or to one of the tracks that ran from the granite quarries down to the piers.

The postcard has no date. Because it was printed in Germany, it was before 1917. According to a 1913 item in The Iron Age, a fire that year destroyed the factory and plans were underway to build a new structure made out of steel. The building in this picture appears to be the one that remains there today, so it would have been built around 1914. That puts the date of this image as between 1914 and 1917.

The earliest reference I could find to the Cape Ann Tool Company was in 1893. I believe it began operating in the late 1880s. It closed in 1987.